The joy of group baking

Bake Off is done for another year. First, there was the expectation that like so many of our annual highlights, it just wouldn’t happen this year. Then a few brief weeks of anticipation once we’d heard it was going ahead. Followed by ten weeks of baking challenges that feel as if they’ve gone by in a flash. What are we going to do with ourselves on a Tuesday evening now that the tent has been packed away, the washing up done and everybody has gone home.

Bake Off always has a feel-good vibe to it and that felt even more so this year. The contestants, judges and production team all isolated together for weeks to get the show made and this came across in just how close the bond was between all involved. How ever competitive things got there were always offers of help if someone was struggling, even during the final.

It must be something about group baking that does this. I remember going to the Cake&Bake show in London a couple of years ago and it was packed with some of the happiest, friendliest people I’ve ever met. Maybe it’s something to do with all the baking powder, flour and sugar wafting about in the air.

The final set of challenges the bakers had to face this year were to create eight custard slices to their recipe for the signature bake. I always remember custard slices as a childhood favourite on the rare occasions my mother would let me indulge in a shop-bought cake. Ironically I think these treats normally happened just after a visit to the dentist.

For the technical challenge, they had to make coffee walnut whirls.I’ve always been partial to a Walnut Whip, which sounds a bit like having an antiquarian kink, but never tried making them at home. Somehow the mixture of marshmallow & chocolate feels as if it should be a shop-bought confection.

For the final showstopper, they were tasked with making a baking tower. This creation had to show off multiple baking skills which the contestants had picked up during their Bake Off journey. The show was won by Peter, far and away the youngest ever winner at just 20 years old, and this was the baking tower that clinched victory for him. A fabulous, if somewhat daunting, bake. Any recipe where the list of required equipment, never mind the ingredients, comes to ten items, is not for the faint-hearted.

I intended to finish off with one last bake connected to the show and have my first attempt at making a custard slice. Unfortunately, other things got in the way this weekend and there just wasn’t time to attempt a 26 stage recipe. I’m still keen to make them and you will hear all about when I do.

I did have time to make a loaf of bread and an apple cake and they are in the photo that goes with this post.

So that’s it, as with every year there’s the should I or shouldn’t I have a go at applying for next time conundrum, but before that its eyes down for Christmas and some festive baking. It’s just a shame that we can’t all get together as a baking group, but I will share what I’m doing on here.